Here comes Neotel

I just don't get Neotel, sorry if this has been brought up before, but I thought they were supposed to be a fixed line operator? :confused: What's with all this wireless nonsense? :confused:

Why would I want a mobile phone that is ten times larger than the average modern cellphone? What's the advantage? :confused:
 
KampfGherkin said:
Seriously, people. Shut up. You guys are bitching and moaning like nothing is good enough for you now. When you've been stuck in the dark for years, a little light at the end of a tunnel will go a long way to one day becoming a fully lit sunshine day.

For R599 pm you get [email protected] Mbps (and WIRELESS/MOBILE to boot), MODEM, PHONE, "LINE RENTAL" and the whole shebang! Which is miles cheaper (read: so much freaking better) than anything you can get from anyone else at present!

And it's Neotel's first offering. Not their second, tenth or twentieth product, but their opening salvo in what will be a long battle.

Seriously, people. Stop whining!

The landscape is changing. Now the ball is in everyone elses court. The competition will have to move and adapt. And when that happens, Neotel will have to do the same again. And so on. Hence it's called "competition", you f'in muppets!

Wait and see before you jump to conclusions.

When you play poker you don't show your hand in the first round of betting, now do ya! Improvements will come step by step, and as far as the first step goes, this is bloody brilliant! Imagine what will happen when Neotel gets SEACOM bandwidth next year this time around.

Good times I say, you pessimists!
Click to expand...

+1
And installation is FREE!

Please people, don't forget this is 3G! This is NOT meant to be an ADSL replacement!
 
I'm not about to stop telling NeeTel how crap its "NeoConnect Prime" package is - which was supposed to be a really exciting entry into the consumer market, but instead has some severe failings, however I might post less often about it - in case that happens, I have updated my forum signature for NeeTel's attention.
 
Neotel - NewTelkom... whatever R599 for 10gb international sounds good... for a start just add 30Gb or free unlimited local and im sold!!!
 
ldmelsa said:
How can you say it's nonsense if you have not used it?
Click to expand...
My comment about "nonsense" was not a slight against the technology.. :rolleyes:
- I use MTN HSDPA and don't have a problem with wireless .. ;)

I was simply querying why they are messing around with wireless stuff, when their entire existence has been about being "the second fixed line operator" (SNO remember)..
 
For those who are saying it's expensive - wtf, ppl!?

10 gig unshaped with WebAfrica would cost me around R1050!!!

That's excluding adsl rental too.

Sheesh! This is a brilliant offering and SEACOM hasn't even been added to the mix yet.
 
j4ck455 said:
Does Neotel have its own news server (like SAIX and IS)?
Click to expand...

Look iv got my vodacom HSDPA cell to connect to the saix news server and it worked so if the they saix based then it should work as normal with the same settings as for telkom ADSL.

Vodacom is also SAIX as far as I know.

I have to mention than I was connect via telkom adsl when I tried this. But Grabit speeds jumped to +-250kb when I connected using my moto Z8. Try it see if it works for u.
 
Just so you guys and girls know what Neotel plans for us here in South Africa.

http://www.neotel.co.za/neotel/view/neotel/en/page50933
"Neotel plans to continue delivering leading-edge technology to suit the needs of its customers, and its choice of the CDMA2000 technology reflects this principle. Evolutions of CDMA 1x EV-DO technology are already in the pipe-line, with EV-DO Rev A offering peak 3.1 megabits per second, EV-DO Rev B in the near future which will deliver peak speeds in the region of 15 megabits per second and EV-DO Rev C in the longer term, which will deliver peak speeds of over 70 megabits per second."

Man... 70 megabits per second. I cant wait!!
 
You right... Just look at it this way why not!!! :-)
 
KampfGherkin said:
For those who are saying it's expensive - wtf, ppl!?

10 gig unshaped with WebAfrica would cost me around R1050!!!

That's excluding adsl rental too.

Sheesh! This is a brilliant offering and SEACOM hasn't even been added to the mix yet.
Click to expand...
Perhaps the news escaped your attention, that NeeTel already has direct access to SAT-3 and the landing station at Melkbosstrand, and that NeeTel does not pay Telkodemonopolies for SAT-3 bandwidth.

Also, bandwidth should not be shaped to start with - Telkodemonopolies takes raw unshaped bandwidth and turns it into shaped bandwidth that it then sells at a lower price than the raw unshaped bandwidth.
 
ic said:
Perhaps the news escaped your attention, that NeeTel already has direct access to SAT-3 and the landing station at Melkbosstrand, and that NeeTel does not pay Telkodemonopolies for SAT-3 bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Which is to say, that's good. But again, like I said in my first post, you don't drop your trousers to take a piss when unzipping will do just fine...

NeoTel has spent billions of Rands. They need to make their money back asap as the market allows or they're in danger of tanking (see Cell C - if you're not profitable soon after market entry, your chances and options to compete will dwindle to fockoll). NeoTel in turn will not offer R200 uncapped bandwidth when it makes no market sense to do so. Later down the line, yes, when the market has reacted and adapted to the new competition.

...Now, if you need to take a dump on the other hand,... :D

You can see, it's kinda in our best interest as consumers to have this work for NeoTel in the long run. Of course, what goes around comes around, so if you're like Telkom abusing this situation, as in being a monopoly. you get shafted by just sucking in the long haul. (How's the odd 15% loss of capital in the last months for TKG, since they're unable to compete with even a mail pigeon these days.) The muppets deserve it.

Talking
ic said:
Also, bandwidth should not be shaped to start with - Telkodemonopolies takes raw unshaped bandwidth and turns it into shaped bandwidth that it then sells at a lower price than the raw unshaped bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Shaping is not a problem only relegated to us South Africans these days. It's becoming a huge problem for users everywhere. From Europe to America. For providers on the other hand it's becoming modus operandi, to throttle bandwidth as they see fit, what with the YouTubes and Torrents of the world clogging the tubes (/sarcasm).

Those glory days of early raw unshaped bandwidth (not for us unfortunately, but pretty much for the rest of the world) is quite in danger of becoming extinct (see Net Neutrality). The point being, we're not likely to go back to those times easily, since it goes counter to ISPs attempts to fatten their bottom lines, but I digress. So anything that is done by companies like NeoTel to go "back" is a step forward, especially in the back alley ICT sector of South Africa; Even if those attempts are seemingly minor and not what the consumer wishes for.

So everybody stop dissing the first market offering from NeoTel and just rejoice that something is finally focking happening in this otherwise boring and anal rape equivalent South African ICT sector! Sheesh. :P
 
Last edited:
KampfGherkin said:
...They need to make their money back asap as the market allows or they're in danger of tanking (see Cell C - if you're not profitable soon after market entry, your chances and options to compete will dwindle to fockoll)...
Click to expand...
You are incorrect, it is shareholders that demand quick and high returns on their investment money, while a company's board of directors is responsible for balancing the demands of shareholders and the demands of customers - if the company's directors allow the scale to tip too far in either direction then the company is in trouble.

There are several key differences between CellC and NeeTel, the most important is that at the time when CellC received its licence, CellC [and Vodacom and MTN and ISPs] was legislatively prevented from self-provisioning its own backhaul network infrastructure [i.e. fibre optic cabling to link base-stations to the core network], and since CellC was not allowed to self-provision at the time of its licensing, CellC decided to take an easier route and less costly in the short term [more costly in the long term], specifically to piggy-back off of Vodacom's network, this required considerably less start-up capex.

NeeTel has undoubtedly invested a lot of money so far in metro & national fibre optic cabling, however that money has mostly been spent for corporate customers which is where NeeTel has been making some back to appease its shareholders, i.e. not from consumers and using wireless CDMA2000 with the very favourable 800MHz band [the lower frequency means that far fewer base-stations are required compared to other wireless technologies operating at higher frequencies].

If NeeTel's licence did not oblige|compel NeeTel to provide consumers with services, then NeeTel would simply concentrate on corporates and forget about consumers altogether - that is where the money is to be made in SA's telecoms sector - not so much from consumers - unless the company is Telkodemonopolies and the company believes that raping consumers is its God-given right.
 
Last edited:
@ic:

Granted. But the point stills stands that NeoTel's offering is by far one of the best available on the South African market at present, albeit in an early rollout stage and thus limited in availability and coverage.

The fact of the matter that it's not "optimal" or "perfect" in some consumers eyes (pro-sumers more than likely), doesn't detract from the fact that the package is highly competitive and thus a very attractive option in the market place, when weighed against competing products.

With that said, with all this bickering and moaning, nobody here has actually named an alternative product that does fulfill these die-hard notions of what internet connectivity should be like in SA. The reason obviously being that it doesn't exist. And we are making demands that just won't be met by our current market and legislative situation (no matter how much we hate the bastards responsible for that).

My point being that the pessimists on this board are making a bad argument for their positions, not to mention, that their positions are unrealistic to begin with.

Though to clarify, I'm not saying that bitching isn't wholly inappropriate, nor am I defending Guavamints incompetence or Telkom. It's just inappropriate when that's all people do, even when the good things do come around.
 
Last edited:
KampfGherkin said:
@ic:

Granted. But the point stills stands that NeoTel's offering is by far one of the best available on the South African market at present, albeit in an early rollout stage and thus limited in availability and coverage.

The fact of the matter that it's not "optimal" or "perfect" in some consumers eyes (pro-sumers more than likely), doesn't detract from the fact that the package is highly competitive and thus a very attractive option in the market place, when weighed against competing products.

With that said, with all this bickering and moaning, nobody here has actually named an alternative product that does fulfill these die-hard notions of what internet connectivity should be like in SA. The reason obviously being that it doesn't exist. And we are making demands that just won't be met by our current market and legislative situation (no matter how much we hate the bastards responsible for that).

My point being that the pessimists on this board are making a bad argument for their positions, not to mention, that their positions are unrealistic to begin with.
Click to expand...

Fine, but Neotel's patent lack of communication with the public is not helping their cause as is evident in this thread. If they can't afford to give us better prices or products, then they should explain why... is that too much to ask?
 
KampfGherkin said:
@ic:

Granted. But the point stills stands that NeoTel's offering is by far one of the best available on the South African market at present, albeit in an early rollout stage and thus limited in availability and coverage.

The fact of the matter that it's not "optimal" or "perfect" in some consumers eyes (pro-sumers more than likely), doesn't detract from the fact that the package is highly competitive and thus a very attractive option in the market place, when weighed against competing products.

With that said, with all this bickering and moaning, nobody here has actually named an alternative product that does fulfill these die-hard notions of what internet connectivity should be like in SA. The reason obviously being that it doesn't exist. And we are making demands that just won't be met by our current market and legislative situation (no matter how much we hate the bastards responsible for that).

My point being that the pessimists on this board are making a bad argument for their positions, not to mention, that their positions are unrealistic to begin with.

Though to clarify, I'm not saying that bitching isn't wholly inappropriate, nor am I defending Guavamints incompetence or Telkom. It's just inappropriate when that's all people do, even when the good things do come around.
Click to expand...
NeeTel has repeatedly spewed out press releases where NeeTel claims to know exactly what consumers want and need, with NeeTel suggesting that it will release something truly spectacular for consumers, I really don't see what is spectacular about a compulsory 24 month contract, I don't see what is spectacular about the ZAR600 per month price tag for 10GB and a clunky phone+modem that cannot be used on any other network in SA, and that if one dares to cancel the 24 month contract, one still has to continue paying for the phone+modem which one then cannot use - NeeTel doesn't even provide the option of buying the phone+modem outright for cash, and it doesn't allow calls to be made or received while connected to the internet and visa versa - that's not what I would call a converged service, heck one cannot even send & receive analogue faxes using the phone.

Furthermore, NeeTel still isn't actually ready to launch 2 years after it was licensed back in December 2005: there is no coverage map, calling NeeTel to ask about NeoConnect Prime or any future products & services is met with - 'no plans to offer that at this point in time, give me your details and I will never call you back' - I know - I have repeatedly experienced this personally in the last few days, and I am in the Jhb area that is supposedly where coverage is most likely to be available before other parts of the country.

It's altogether a very disappointing entrance into the consumer market.
 
ic said:
NeeTel has repeatedly spewed out press releases where NeeTel claims to know exactly what consumers want and need, with NeeTel suggesting that it will release something truly spectacular for consumers, I really don't see what is spectacular about a compulsory 24 month contract, I don't see what is spectacular about the ZAR600 per month price tag for 10GB and a clunky phone+modem that cannot be used on any other network in SA, and that if one dares to cancel the 24 month contract, one still has to continue paying for the phone+modem which one then cannot use - NeeTel doesn't even provide the option of buying the phone+modem outright for cash, and it doesn't allow calls to be made or received while connected to the internet and visa versa[/b - that's not what I would call a converged service, heck one cannot even send & receive analogue faxes using the phone.
Click to expand...


Eish, you and Bradbowlllama just turned me 180° around on NeoTel.

I didn't realise, nor did I see any of the points you stated mentioned in their PR or marketing info on their site. Nice.

My arguments have been alltogether sunk it would seem. Where do I sign up for the bitchfest? :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X